Dear Ms. Vicki,
I’m not trying to be prejudiced or inappropriate, but my “gay-dar” tells me my soldier is gay! I guess you are wondering how I know this. Well, I think the guy is way too effeminate. The more I get to know him, the more effeminate he becomes.
When we first started dating, he was Mr. Hoo-ah Hoo-ah and stayed in the gym two to three times a day working on a hard body. I think that was all an act to win me over. Now he is becoming more of who he really is.
The second reason I know he is gay is that he plays the piano for a Baptist church. Everyone knows the pianist for the church is gay. He acts like a little woman when he plays the piano.
I’ve also noticed a lot of his male friends, who are also in the Army, raise my “gay-dar” too. At times they look a little too close for my comfort.
I try to bring up conversations about gay people by talking about famous gay people who came out of the closet, but he doesn’t even want to discuss it. He always diverts the conversation to something else.
I want to be very blatant and direct and ask him, “Are you gay?” - or is this a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? Don’t get me wrong, Ms. Vicki, he is very handsome and looks really good in his uniform, but I won’t continue being sexually intimate with a man who is gay - even though I’ll admit it’s great and I look forward to our intimate times.
Should I do more investigations and check up on him a little more or should I quit while I’m ahead?
- In Tune
Dear In Tune,
Oh my goodness, stop making generalizations and stereotypes about people and deal with the real issue. You should know that being effeminate doesn’t prove you are gay, any more than being very masculine proves you are not gay. Being a male piano player in a Baptist church doesn’t mean you are gay either.
Here’s the deal: I think you know your man is gay. You have enough information to know this, but you would rather be in denial about it. Instead, you want to spy on him and invade his privacy to try and prove something different to yourself.
Let’s get real. You have no right to check his cell phone records or e-mail activity. You have two choices: Continue to date him and get great sex or choose not to date him and terminate this relationship.
Reader responses to previous columns:
• I just had to write about that young lady who was contemplating leaving school to go to Germany with her boyfriend without a change in name. You told her the right thing.
A few years ago when we were at Fort Lee, there was a couple “shacking up,” as one would say, and they had been for about four years. She had followed him to two other duty stations previously and on to the school at Fort Lee. She had a job with a contract that had her staying on for four months after he would go on to his next duty station.
He went to Fort Bragg and ran into a girl from high school. She was staying with her sister, whose husband had been deployed, to help with her sister’s newborn triplets.
Well, about six months later, we got an invitation to his wedding. My husband e-mailed him and asked if that was the same girl he had been with at Fort Lee. He said “no” and told him how he had run into someone he had known in high school. I knew something like that would probably happen because he didn’t seem too interested in marrying her.
When we went to the wedding, one of the couples who had been at Fort Lee asked him if he and his bride had been living together. He said, “Of course not, I wouldn’t marry someone I shacked up with.”
We all do dumb things when we’re young, and I would hate to see that young lady go down that road, especially in a foreign country.
- Catie
• I’m a family law professor and a married mother of three, with several military personnel in my extended family. I just want to compliment you on your advice. You are not only down to earth, but so accurately reflect what all the legal and sociological literature indicates about what forms and sustains a happy marriage. You scold when they need scolding and comfort when they need comforting, but you tell the truth (e.g. “You would be going to Germany to live with someone who doesn’t want to marry you.”) Right on! That’s exactly the situation.
I’m glad you do what you do. Little by little, person by person, you are helping build a better “culture of the family.” God bless and stay strong!
- Professor Helen Alvare, associate professor of law, George Mason University School of Law
• Vicki Johnson is a licensed clinical social worker, military spouse and mother of three. Her Dear Ms. Vicki column runs in The Washington Times on Thursdays and Sundays. Contact her at dearmsvicki@yahoo.com.
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